Conventionally, customer support services have been enabled through voice telephony based support centers (e.g. call centers)—whereby customer service representatives converse with customers through voice network communications to resolve customer problems and provide technical support. Over time, some support services have migrated from traditional public switched telephone networks (PSTN) to data networks that utilize text based or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communication to facilitate communication between customers and customer service representatives. Software applications (for example computer applications or mobile communication device applications) that permit for direct text or voice based messaging between a customer and a customer service representative are also increasingly common.
It has however been found that customers and customer service representatives frequently have difficulties understanding each other, owing in part to voice quality issues, and more commonly due to differences in accents, pronunciation, speech patterns and speech cadences.
Additionally, typical interactions between customers and customer service representatives require one or both parties to be able to access data records that are relevant to the issues under discussion—for example documents relating to product or service purchases, payments, payment receipts, terms and conditions, warranties and prior communications between parties.
A significant amount of time in any session between a customer and customer service representative is spent in deciphering speech of the other party, identifying relevant documents or data records, and each party trying to locate/access the documents or data records referred to by the other. This has been found to be a significant contributor to customer dissatisfaction—and has also been found to reduce the efficiency with which a customer service representative is able to address a customer's problems.
There is accordingly a requirement for solutions that provide more effective and convenient techniques, and instant communication based customer support services that address the above problems.